Monthly Archives: June 2016

Shortly after Edward Snowden went public with his findings on the NSA’s surveillance program, he uttered some very powerful words: “All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.” Truth is coming, and […]

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In my 20-plus years in tech, and now in Silicon Valley as part of a tech foundation that supports innovations, I’ve had the opportunity to partner with many entrepreneurs and help foster the growth of dozens of startups for social good. As a woman, the fact that I’m still working in tech, and in a leadership position, is not lost on me.

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Twist Bioscience, a startup making and using synthetic DNA to store digital data, just struck a contract with Microsoft and the University of Washington to encode vast amounts of information on synthetic genes. Big data means business and the company able to gather a lot of it is very valuable to investors and stockholders. But that […]

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In a bid to prevent crimes against women, all mobile phones sold in India will be required to have a physical panic button installed by the beginning of next year. Department of Telecommunications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Twitter that the new rule will go into effect in January 2017. When pressed, the panic button will send an alert to police and people chosen by the phone’s user.

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Podcasts and audio books are enjoying tremendous popularity at the moment, and the fresh-off-the-app-presses app Rightspeed is a $2.99 iOS app that’s here to help you speed-listen your way through your audio library. Have you ever wondered how quickly you can really listen to an audio book? That was the starting point for Max Deutsch, the app’s creator, and the idea behind the app.

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The FBI plans not to disclose to Apple the method it used to access an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooting suspect, or submit it for an internal government review, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The FBI announced in March that it had purchased a hacking tool from a third party that enabled […]

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I’m going to drop some science on you — social science — about how to recruit a diverse team of high performers. In 1973, Stanford sociology professor Mark Granovetter published an empirical paper called The Strength of Weak Ties. If you’re wondering about the validity of a 40-year-old study on hiring for today, consider that Professor Granovetter is one of the pioneers of social network theory, and is “unofficially” short-listed for the Nobel Prize in Economics.

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YouTube announced a new ad format today that’s all about brevity. In a blog post, Product Manager Zach Lupei said YouTube has been exploring formats that are better-suited for smartphone video watchers. Hence the creation of Bumper ads — video ads that are only six seconds long. The idea of a really short ad isn’t […]

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Why wait for the bus when you can hail a cab? That’s the idea behind a new commercial spaceflight startup founded by SpaceX founding team members Jim Cantrell and John Garvey. Vector Space Systems wants to shake up to the commercial space market by providing not tens, but hundreds of launches per year.

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In Response To: Heavenletter #5630 A Prevalent Idea in the World, April 24, 2016 (hobie) Hi, all. There are great reasons to avoid death if you ask me. First, we are most likely on the cusp of a new reality where death is prolonged to perhaps 900 years or so. Why not try to survive […]

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The proposed merger of Time Warner and Charter Communications is set for approval by government regulators, who want the combined company to follow restrictions designed to prevent it from stifling the growth of streaming video services.

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Let’s get something straight. There is one reason rape takes place. All rapes, across genders and times and circumstances. From the marital bed to the prison shower, at drunken parties to hospital beds. There is one reason rape happens and only one. You ready for this? Rape and sexual assault take place because the perpetrator […]

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Waze has responded to security concerns raised yesterday in a Fusion report documenting an exploit found by UC Santa Barbara researchers. In short: it’s legit, but not as dire as it’s made out to be. [related_articles]The exploit leverages the Waze feature that shows you nearby users, showing that the data you’re seeing is live and […]

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The U.S. Air Force has awarded SpaceX an $82.7 million contract to launch their GPS-3 satellite into orbit. This is the first National Security Space (NSS) contract for SpaceX, who won essentially by default since ULA, the only other viable competitor, declined to bid in the competition. “This GPS III Launch Services contract award achieves a […]

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The Supreme Court approved hotly contested amendments to federal criminal procedure today that, if accepted by Congress, will expand the FBI’s ability to hack into computer networks. The rule at the heart of the debate is Criminal Rule 41, which limits judges’ authority to authorize search warrants. Magistrate judges can usually only approve warrants within their jurisdiction […]

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GUEST: The Facebook Messenger platform opens many doors for easier, better digital interactions by enabling businesses to embed codes in chat conversations. Businesses can now obtain user messages, translate them into action requests, and send back automatically generated or manually-typed-by-human responses to the users. This is a faster, simpler, and richer experience than mobile app…

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I spent last week on a junket in Paris, paid for by the French government, visiting the various hubs and spokes of the burgeoning French startup scene. I don’t think they’ll invite me back, after they read this. My considered assessment is that the French government, and to an extent the larger French tech scene,…

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Peter and Jessica delve into the Numbers Group and her involvement in the Nazi Eugenic Project Walrider. Location of Monarch Solutions in Toronto, Canada and more about the black goo, Murkoff Corporation, Shoreline Group, Activation of Monarch Sleepers, this and much more. Peters Mint Tea Recipe: Drink twice a day but not any more than […]

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Buyouts may replace IPOs as the exit of choice for tech companies in the coming months. This comes as the number of startups unable to exit into a frozen market continues to grow. With only two tech IPOs so far in 2016, and poor market returns for the majority of those already public, companies are turning elsewhere to cash in […]

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Every battle is won before it is fought. This bit of pop wisdom, brought down to us from Sun Tzu and countless motivational speakers, is the koan for a generation of can-do entrepreneurs. But there is another version of this line, one that is less rosy. [tc_contributor_byline slug=“john-biggs”] Every battle is won or lost before […]

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Paris is flooding! And 250,000 pieces of art could be at risk, as curators from the Louvre have been rushing to transfer the works from storage areas to higher ground. Parisian authorities have now closed the entire Louvre museum itself, the national library, the Orsay museum, and the Grand Palais. “We evaluate the situation for all the […]

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Supermodel, actress, activist, and victim of a redundant “n” Cara Delevingne posed nude as part of her role as the inaugural ambassador of global anti-poaching campaign called, cleverly, I’m Not a Trophy. The mission of the movement is to call attention to trophy hunters and poachers, and is working to combat the slaughtering of endangered species to ensure […]

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Hillary Clinton has often been depicted as an enemy of government transparency in the long-running controversy over her use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. It took several lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a law that gives the public access to government documents and data, to pry […]

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The rumor mill had been churning since Prince’s death on April 21, but it’s only now been confirmed that the legendary singer, born Prince Rogers Nelson, died of an opioid overdose. The news was confirmed by the AP earlier today. Suspicion of drugs as the cause of Prince’s death began soon after it was confirmed that […]

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Another parliamentary committee that has been scrutinizing UK surveillance legislation currently before parliament says changes are needed to remove concerns the Investigatory Powers Bill would afford state security agencies powers that are too broad.

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The marketplace industry will be just fine. It is uncertainty – rather than a fundamental flaw in the business model – that is the root cause of the sector’s present turmoil. There’s uncertainty over the platforms’ internal monitoring processes, over the veracity of loan data, over shifts in loan rates, over shifts in the economy – and indeed over the platforms’ capacity to weather such shifts.

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Credit card penetration is one of those problems that isn’t really a ‘problem’ in the West. In the U.S. alone, 232 million adults are said to own at least one credit card, with 18 percent of consumers in the country owning two or three cards.

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Elizabeth Holmes, the once celebrated founder of Theranos, sat at number one on Forbes list of richest self-made women last year but has taken quite the tumble – the media outlet has since revalued her net worth to zilch. Holmes, 31, comes from a family with powerful political connections – both parents held important government positions in Washington – […]

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Content (in all its forms) is increasingly both the commodity and currency of the digital era, but the speed and ease of near-instantaneous global communication and a capacity for infinite reproduction has served to make it easier to sever the work from its creator. Brooklyn-based Mediachain is hoping to change that.

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Online harassment is no good. Unfortunately, 40 percent of all people on the internet report experiencing some form of harassment online and 70 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 have been targeted, according to Pew Research Center. “A young person who was being bullied a few generations ago could escape the […]

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In honor of the last day of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Margaret Cho and rapper/comedian Awkwafina premiered their new video, “Green Tea,” yesterday on the blog Angry Asian Man. Pretty much every second is great, but look out for a quick Soon-Yi diss, the legendary “flip a stereotype, how an Asian bitch got concubines?” […]

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CoreOS today announced the launch of Torus, its latest open source project. Just like CoreOS’s other projects, Torus is all about giving startups and enterprises access to the same kind of technologies that web-scale companies like Google already use internally. In the case of Torus, that’s distributed storage. The idea behind Torus is to give […]

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According to research unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FBI has teamed with government scientists to work on a technology system designed to track tattoos. In 2014, the Imaging wing of the the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created the Tattoo Recognition Technology with help from the FBI. Among the group’s earliest […]

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Silicon Valley is experiencing an extended boom that has only recently shown signs of fatigue. Many observers portend an ominous environment ripe for a bust similar to the early 2000s. Yes, there are many similarities between now and the dot-com boom. There are, however, key differences that will enable Silicon Valley to continue driving forward, no matter the headwinds.

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TCAPS – that’s Tactical Communication and Protective System – are a sort of combo connected earplug/hearing aid currently being deployed by the US Army to both reduce hearing loss from explosive sounds and enhance perception of quiet tones. The system, currently priced at a (perhaps unsurprisingly) lofty $2,000, is designed to address the problem of hearing […]

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In the early 1900s, large organizations needed another type of CEO: Chief Electricity Officer. Before there was an accessible and reliable power grid to plug into, organizations that needed electricity employed a CEO to make sure they had steady and cheap access to this vital commodity. Given the aging data center architecture, it’s now the Chief Innovation Officer who is increasingly becoming the Chief Electricity Officer of the past.

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Researchers at the U.S. Navy have created a high-tech, in-helmet display for divers in the service that looks like something out of “Iron Man” — perhaps one of Stark’s early prototypes. The invention could make divers safer and more effective, and it definitely looks cool.

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Google might be eavesdropping more than you had originally imagined, though not on purpose. Since June 2015, Google has been storing personal data on its users on a website, where users only have access to their own information. The feature works a bit like a digital diary, storing web searches, YouTube history, and (you guessed […]

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Last week the Washington Post published a story reporting that every 10 seconds a woman is called a whore or slut on Twitter. This isn’t exactly news; Twitter is famous for trolls, abuse, and overall shitiness. Had the researchers included the words ‘bitch,’ ‘thot,’ or ‘hoe;’ taken a look at the body shaming that happens to […]

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In Return of the Jedi, Yoda tells Luke “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.” Luckily for me, this didn’t apply to the patent world. I spent seven years on the “dark side” working for patent trolls before coming back to the light. Patent trolls…

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According to research unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FBI has teamed with government scientists to work on a technology system designed to track tattoos. In 2014, the Imaging wing of the the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created the Tattoo Recognition Technology with help from the FBI. Among the group’s earliest…

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Today, Yahoo disclosed its receipt of three national security letters (FBI requests for data that Yahoo is normally barred from disclosing) and published redacted copies of the letters online. Yahoo says that this disclosure “marks the first time any company has publicly acknowledged receiving an NSL following the reforms of the USA Freedom Act.” That bill, which passed…

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Peter and Jessica delve into the Numbers Group and her involvement in the Nazi Eugenic Project Walrider. Location of Monarch Solutions in Toronto, Canada and more about the black goo, Murkoff Corporation, Shoreline Group, Activation of Monarch Sleepers, this and much more. Peters Mint Tea Recipe: Drink twice a day but not any more than […]